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[nush]

At Nintendo, he's like a handful of us are fucking one man shows who have to do everything.

Sounds about right, I've worked with all three.

Sony: You can call someone and talk to them.
Microsoft: You can call someone and talk to them.
Nintendo: Fuck you, fill in this 5 page document (AND FAX IT TO US), no don't call us, we'll get back to you when we feel like it.

This was Wii generation.

 

[Doom85]

I swear, if this acquisition cost us all Spyro 4…..

Hope those who have lost their jobs find a new job they’re happy with soon. Best of luck to them.

 

[user friendly]

Watch Playstation announce they are taking in a lot of this talent...

MS trimming a bit too much I think...

 

[clarky]

I don't have much experience running a multi billion dollar franchise but seems a bit retarded laying off loads of staff that are already struggling to get yearly releases out of the door.

Unless Skynet has already took over internally at MS, these moves lately make no sense at all.

 

[Mato]

It's possible that AI tools like GPT and Midjourney, by driving increased productivity, might be contributing to these job cuts.

 

[clarky]

It's possible that AI tools like GPT and Midjourney, by driving increased productivity, might be contributing to these job cuts.

The only way it makes sense.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I don't have much experience running a multi billion dollar franchise but seems a bit retarded laying off loads of staff that are already struggling to get yearly releases out of the door.

Unless Skynet has already took over internally at MS, these moves lately make no sense at all.

Comes down to a combo of costs and how good the existing people are.

Years back, our finance department had 3 SFAs (sr financial analysts spread out covering different products). The VP of Finance gassed all of them the same day. And it took like 3 months to refill the roles with new people.

During that 3 months, there was literally ZERO effect on day to day tasks. Those people did such lousy work, nobody even noticed they were gone. I sure didnt. And I even worked with them on certain stuff. Whatever was needed, i just did it myself and it was way better accuracy and analysis.

 

[Rudius]

Spyro 4 is fucked now.

At least we got the reignited trilogy, the top of my dream game(s) list.

 

[StereoVsn]

The same group of consultants are advising these companies to aggressively get lean, and to rightsize explosive tech salaries. These companies are reporting record revenue and profits - this has everything to do with greed and appeasing shareholders

Yep, Microsoft just hit $3trillion valuation. They are making AKB sized acquisition in profit. This ain’t related to a recession or anything but short sighted corpo shareholder politics.

 

[onQ123]

Storms

 

[rexux-Corocotta]

Same message as in the other thread.......

Activision

01/18/2022 ....... ≈10000 employees
10/13/2023 ....... ≈17000 employees

 

[Nicktendo86]

Spencer will greenlight new Crash and Spyro game any minute now

Those shill Xbox idiots mocking up images of all the ip Microsoft own now they have ABK as if we were actually going to get any new games from them we’re such a joke. They had the gall to put Banjo in there ffs

 

[graywolf323]

It's a shame that certain people are banned or temporarily banned, because they could explain to us how this is actually a great thing worthy of celebrating!

don’t worry, they’re still around (or their coworkers are) and explaining how we’re all just dumb & Microsoft are geniuses

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Imagine laying off 40% of a studio whose recent game was an 85 metacritic with very favorable user reviews, and working with a cherished IP.

What the fuck was the point of buying Activision if you are laying off the talent? What was the point of buying someone like Double Fine just a few years ago that makes similar games?

I can't imagine laying off 35+ people was THAT good for the bottom line.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

I truly wonder how some people thought the merger would bring about a revival of their beloved favorite series owned by ABK.

Shills. That's what.

They all wanted this. Well, now you're getting it. We're all worse off thanks to this acquisition.

 

[graywolf323]

Imagine laying off 40% of a studio whose recent game was an 85 metacritic with very favorable user reviews, and working with a cherished IP.

What the fuck was the point of buying Activision if you are laying off the talent? What was the point of buying someone like Double Fine just a few years ago that makes similar games?

I can't imagine laying off 35+ people was THAT good for the bottom line.

that’s what really bothers me with the people claiming this is just cutting the fat, Toys for Bob had <100 employees, how is laying off 40% (!) of the workforce cutting the fat? this studio wasn’t fat in the first place

 

[SenkiDala]

Fuck you Microsoft

 

[ByWatterson]

Ok, are we entering a recession or is gaming just fucked?

We have been entering a recession for two years with no recession yet. GDP is buoyant, unemployment is historically low, and inflation is tamed (at least for now). A lot of doom and gloom because one industry is suffering and interest rates are high.

The economy, overall, is humming.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

that’s what really bothers me with the people claiming this is just cutting the fat, Toys for Bob had <100 employees, how is laying off 40% (!) of the workforce cutting the fat? this studio wasn’t fat in the first place

Yeah these aren't "HR and accounting" roles with actual redundancies. It's developers.

 

[MagnesD3]

Yay Microsoft. Lol at the people with pipedreams for spyro 4, that shit is dead.

 

[64bitbros]

But but…. I was told good guy Phil was gonna let Toys for Bob make a new Crash/Spyro/Banjo.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Now we all know what Aaron Greenberg meant by this....It's not an X for Xbox, Greenberg is taking the hatchet to Toys for Bob and killing the studio. CROSS THEM OUT!

 

[FIREKNIGHT2029]

MS putting too much faith in AI perhaps? Laying off so many talented people from studios that work really hard and struggle to put out yearly releases sounds dumb AF to me. I’m struggling to figure out the logic behind these MS layoffs. It’s not like there’s an infinite pool of talented devs everywhere and these people aren’t easily replaced.

 

[Quantum253]

So many job loses.
WTF is wrong with this industry....

A long time ago, my friend was hired, by a smaller developer, to make a well-known game. Once the game was complete most of the staff were let go and only a few from each department were held for maintenance and patches.
I asked what that was all about and something that seems to be common with studios and even something they talk about having your resume up-to-date and using that experience for the next studio. It seems to be a part of working in the industry. I'm not sure about the larger corps that probably maintain lots of staff due to developing multiple titles at a time.

 

[Spyxos]

Great, that was the best team they had.

 

[CamHostage]

Sucks they lost their job, but if it's redundant...I mean it's not charity. Gotta streamline somehow.

It's only redundant to lay off people from the only studio still making products other than Call of Duty* if somebody looked the product line and went, "Well, we ain't going to do what those folks were doing anymore..."

(*Toys for Bob has also been roped into Call of Duty, so maybe they will survive by going back into those mines again.)

Sarcasm aside, they still have people making original games. I don't think this is the issue.

Who would those people be? The only Activision games not called Call of Duty were made by studios either now defunct or referenced in this forum as having been downsized. (Unless you count Sekiro, which Activision signed with FromSoft to distribute outside Japan.)

List of Activision games: 2020–present - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[CamHostage]

I truly wonder how some people thought the merger would bring about a revival of their beloved favorite series owned by ABK.

Microsoft / Activision could still farm their Acti franchises out to third-party studios. (And layoffs or not, they pretty much would have to if they planned on using these brands, since they at Acti had Vicarious Visions be absorbed and they closed Neversoft and they closed RedOctane and they pulled High Moon and Raven and Radical and Beenox and Treyarch all into the full-time Call of Duty manufacturing process. Nobody but Toys for Bob were left in the building still making non-CoDs.)

I was always skeptical of that becoming a reality, just going by Xbox's history of re-introducing brands (although they did eventually make a Battletoads and Rare Replay collection, and are doing Perfect Dark again.) Then again, I was pretty much 100% convinced (especially after VV was melted away) that Activision itself had no intentions of making anything but CoD ever again.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

It's possible that AI tools like GPT and Midjourney, by driving increased productivity, might be contributing to these job cuts.

Don't kid yourself. AI is not anywhere close to making those jobs redundant.

And if it increases productivity? You can employ the same number of people and make even BETTER games for the same equivalent workforce.

This level of spin is insane, and of course the usual suspects are liking that comment.

 

[Jigsaah]

It's only redundant to lay off people from the only studio still making products other than Call of Duty* if somebody looked the product line and went, "Well, we ain't going to do what those folks were doing anymore..."

(*Toys for Bob has also been roped into Call of Duty, so maybe they will survive by going back into those mines again.)



Who would those people be? The only Activision games not called Call of Duty were made by studios either now defunct or referenced in this forum as having been downsized. (Unless you count Sekiro, which Activision signed with FromSoft to distribute outside Japan.)

List of Activision games: 2020–present - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I was more referring to Xbox Studios as a whole are creating original games. South of Midnight, Clockwork Revolution, etc.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

A long time ago, my friend was hired, by a smaller developer, to make a well-known game. Once the game was complete most of the staff were let go and only a few from each department were held for maintenance and patches.
I asked what that was all about and something that seems to be common with studios and even something they talk about having your resume up-to-date and using that experience for the next studio. It seems to be a part of working in the industry. I'm not sure about the larger corps that probably maintain lots of staff due to developing multiple titles at a time.

Thats the nature of project based companies. And they wonder why so many people are under contractors employment. If an average game takes 3 years to make, you dont need all lets say 60 people employed for 3 years straight. Maybe some roles you do but not all 60 people. At the beginning of game creation will some people doing ideas. You dont need advanced audio recording, mocap studio people or graphics guys yet because nothing has even been decided yet.

If the game company has lots of games in development at the same time then sure maybe you can always rotate people to this team or that team. But that assumes there's enough work to go around and the person is a good worker within budget. Many of the small independent studios only have one game being made at a time. There's no other in-house games being made to rotate to.

My company uses hardly any contractors because it's a stable company selling a shitload of products year round. Like 99% are FT workers. It would be crazy to hire and fire people all the time because there's enough work to always need people every day of the year. Thats the perk of stable companies. There's always work, but the pay will never be techie money where you hear about 25 years old who are good at coding can earn more than directors at my company with 20 years experience. Thats the nature of the industries. We do use contractors though. At the end of every year, the finance department has to finalize submissions and we hire a handful of tax people to help do all the admin work. They are hired for 1-2 months an thats it. Its a slog to do final closing submissions. But once it's done, we dont need them till next year. This kind of role isn't needed year round, so they are hired from temp agencies for short term stints.

 

[Kikorin]

The hard truth is Microsoft bought Call of Duty, not Activitision Blizzard. They don't give a fuck about everything else, so they'll keep the bare minimum to continue making 1 CoD per year.

 

[Krieger]

And the shills told everyone "Now ToysForBob can work on a new Banjoo, Spyro, Crash etc." What a joke. I give them less than 1 year before Miro$oft kills them completely, because firing 1/3 is a death sentence for the studio.

 

[Puscifer]

Ok, are we entering a recession or is gaming just fucked?

All signs point to recession. I've had some great job offers but my job is fully funded for 5 years as a federal contractor, I'm not leaving for the simple fact I wanna make sure I have a roof over my head.

 

[SegaManAU]

Sad news to hear, hope they all bounce back soon.

I loved what they did with Crash Bandicoot.

 

[CamHostage]

Thats the nature of project based companies. And they wonder why so many people are under contractors employment. If an average game takes 3 years to make, you dont need all lets say 60 people employed for 3 years straight. Maybe some roles you do but not all 60 people. At the beginning of game creation will some people doing ideas. You dont need advanced audio recording, mocap studio people or graphics guys yet because nothing has even been decided yet.

No, you don't need huge staffs for the entire development cycle.

However, it used to be that developers had an A/B studio structure, where one project would be in incubation mode while the main project is getting through full production (and sometimes there would be more projects than that being juggled at a time.) Look at the credits of say an Activision game from the PS3 era and you'll see some cross-over of other studios lending technical or material assistance to that game production. (I'm guessing you saw those names more and more frequently in CoD productions, which eventually led to those studios no longer just subbing into CoD a little bit, eventually that became the whole studio's permanent job.) Also, the publisher/developer structure should be set up so that these audio and mocap and specialized (or even generalized) team members / offices are used for multiple projects across the full developer group family. so if one team is done with its 60 extra people and isn't going to use its recording studios for a while, some other developer's project is coming into need of those assets.

The timeline of making games has made that a difficult structure to uphold, unfortunately. But also, the industry is chaotic and "logical structure of workflow" is hard to apply.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

No, you don't need huge staffs for the entire development cycle.

However, it used to be that developers had an A/B studio structure, where one project would be in incubation mode while the main project is getting through full production (and sometimes there would be more projects than that being juggled at a time.) Look at the credits of say an Activision game from the PS3 era and you'll see some cross-over of other studios lending technical or material assistance to that game production. (I'm guessing you saw those names more and more frequently in CoD productions, which eventually led to those studios no longer just subbing into CoD a little bit, eventually that became the whole studio's permanent job.) Also, the publisher/developer structure should be set up so that these audio and mocap and specialized (or even generalized) team members / offices are used for multiple projects across the full developer group family. so if one team is done with its 60 extra people and isn't going to use its recording studios for a while, some other developer's project is coming into need of those assets.

The timeline of making games has made that a difficult structure to uphold, unfortunately. But also, the industry is chaotic and "logical structure of workflow" is hard to apply.

That;'s the thing.

Maybe in modern times, game companies with tons of people and things going on dont want to rotate people around, or perhaps dont have enough work for them as they want to cut the cord on projects that dont sell enough games.

Sometimes companies just want to get leaner for sake of efficiencies and hassles. My company has so many brands and items selling nobody can keep track of everything. Everyone focuses on the key product lines. But sometimes we gas product lines which still make profit! Sounds weird because some people may think as long as these 30 items still sell and squeak out some profit why not just keep em around. But sometimes we just gas them and put that effort into other product lines. Marketing plays a key role because those costs are often shifted to another product line or just banked.

When i wrote above about hiring temp tax people for 1-2 months a year, of course our company can keep them around all year. When they dont have enough tax work they can rotate and do financial analysis or accounting stuff. And then when its tax time they do that again. On paper it might even be an extra benefit as it's the same people so the person knows the company and systems and how it all works internally. But in reality, the tax temps coming in every year are different people. The company has made a decision it's better to just rotate tax temps in and out every year.

 

[tr1p1ex]

So many job loses.
WTF is wrong with this industry....

nothing. layoffs are pretty typical in the games industry where jobs are dependent on games being successful.

The big difference this time around seems to be the pandemic made a lot of people overhire.

Could be other factors at play here. I don't know the mobile and GaaS scene very well. Maybe enough consumers are tiring of spending on stupid season passes and microtransactions? Even that though would probably be related to the boom when everyone was locked down.

 

[CamHostage]

nothing. pretty typical in the games industry where jobs are dependent on games being successful.

The big difference this time around is the pandemic made a lot of people overhire.

Eh, COVID was involved, but also a new console cycle started in 2020. That was supposed to be an upswing in sales and new product interest, same as usual, but among other market factors, this gen has frustratingly not been following the same patterns as others.

(PS4/X1 were already curving differently than usual as well. It has been difficult to figure out the normal path forward when so much about the industry and the measure of success and the financial structure and schedule of products and the promotional methods have changed.)

 

[Fabieter]

Anyone crying for more publisher buyouts after this should be ashamed.

 

[tr1p1ex]

Eh, COVID was involved, but also a new console cycle started in 2020. That was supposed to be an upswing in sales and new product interest, same as usual, but this gen has frustratingly not been like others

(PS4/X1 were already curving differently than usual as well. It has been difficult to figure out the normal path forward when so much about the industry and the measure of success and the financial structure and schedule of products and the promotional methods have changed.)

Afaik PS5 is tracking PS4 sales so not exactly sure what you're getting at there. I mean we are getting fewer AAA games as budgets get bigger sure. But otherwise not sure what you're trying to say exactly.

Definitely agree, if this is what you're getting at with 2nd paragraph, that it's harder to follow the industry given there is mobile and GaaS and DLC and microtransactions and subscription services and digital sales vs physical sales where the former isn't tracked like the latter is. And maybe this is true for gaming execs as well.

But a lot of layoffs I've seen are basically overhiring in the first place, merger-related, and/or game not being successful enough for the size of bet made or a game was succcessful (GaaS/mobile) but has started slowing down.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

There was an upswing. The pandemic created a big boom including with consoles. Afaik PS5 is tracking PS4 sales so not sure what you're getting at there. The lockdowns made the landscape sparse with games in the early part of the lifecycle that is normally already sparse on games. The gen before took a year or two before true next-gen games came out.

Definitely agree, if this is what you're getting at with 2nd paragraph, that it's harder to follow the industry given there is mobile and GaaS and DLC and microtransactions and subscription services and digital sales vs physical sales where the former isn't tracked like the latter is. And probably more difficult to make bets for business leaders.

I would guess all those business models are leading to layoffs too as some probably overspent there chasing trends.

I mean similar things happened with MMORPGs. A lot of people got into the space...it eventually produced WoW. Which in turn basically became king and drove everyone else out of the space. The others had to find their niche or shut down. Projects were canceled. The reality being consumer appetites don't go to the moon.

I dont what it is the last few years, but the giant covid spike was peak tech. Not just games, but Docusign, Zoom Media, Peloton etc.... Sales and stock prices went through the roof. All came falling down when things normalized a year later.

As for gaming, the pot of money is still there. Isnt the trend that the gaming industry is getting bigger and bigger? Seems so.

Problem is it's probably not being spliced out evenly, and companies amped up on too many tech workers the past 5 years years.... including Google, Meta etc....

So while super successful GAAS and mobile gaming (which I remember that giant pie chart Gaffers have posted over the years where mobile is growing the fastest and also 50% of gaming revenue while consoles and PC split the other half at shittier growth rates, it shows the money is there but be funneled to certain kinds of companies and games. And if that means Candy Crush and Clash of Clans are the kinds of games leading the charge, then it means that full budget full priced game we all are used to playing on consoles really needs to be successful as that other segment is the focus. Add in giant budgets and teams making games and it's really rolling the dice. To be at peak success, a game company making a traditional full priced half decent budget game has to be able to sell a game that gamers want in the millions, while also juggling the budget.

You never heard about this kind of thing way back when games were made by 50 people and a successful game sold 1M copies. At that time, that was good enough and high fives all around the office. Now, the sales expectations are big to cover big production costs.

 

[bitbydeath]

Ok, are we entering a recession or is gaming just fucked?

Bethesda went through the same thing last year, this is just how MS operates. They’ll rehire with contractors.

 

[Toons]

Ok, are we entering a recession or is gaming just fucked?

Yes.

 

[Robb]

That sucks big time, they did a fantastic job on the remakes. I was looking forward to more stuff from them, one of the few gets from the ActiBlizz deal I actually cared about.

 

[tr1p1ex]

I dont what it is the last few years, but the giant covid spike was peak tech. Not just games, but Docusign, Zoom Media, Peloton etc.... Sales and stock prices went through the roof. All came falling down when things normalized a year later.

As for gaming, the pot of money is still there. Isnt the trend that the gaming industry is getting bigger and bigger? Seems so.

Problem is it's probably not being spliced out evenly, and companies amped up on too many tech workers the past 5 years years.... including Google, Meta etc....

So while super successful GAAS and mobile gaming (which I remember that giant pie chart Gaffers have posted over the years where mobile is growing the fastest and also 50% of gaming revenue while consoles and PC split the other half at shittier growth rates, it shows the money is there but be funneled to certain kinds of companies and games. And if that means Candy Crush and Clash of Clans are the kinds of games leading the charge, then it means that full budget full priced game we all are used to playing on consoles really needs to be successful as that other segment is the focus. Add in giant budgets and teams making games and it's really rolling the dice. To be at peak success, a game company making a traditional full priced half decent budget game has to be able to sell a game that gamers want in the millions, while also juggling the budget.

You never heard about this kind of thing way back when games were made by 50 people and a successful game sold 1M copies. At that time, that was good enough and high fives all around the office. Now, the sales expectations are big to cover big production costs.

oh yeah it's across a lot of industries. All the ones that benefitted from the lockdowns. Not just tech either.

obviously money is still in gaming but even mobile/GaaS are laying off people. Riot games runs 2 wildly successful GaaS afaik yet are laying off people.

Gaming layoffs are nothing new. Been around for many decades. Much of it now due to overhiring.

And yes having to sell more copies as budgets increase is a thing but that has been around for decades too. Many genres have fell by the wayside over the years due to this. 20 years ago Nintendo cited this as part of the reason for the Wii.

This would be a thing without GaaS/mobile.

 

[CamHostage]

Afaik PS5 is tracking PS4 sales so not exactly sure what you're getting at there. I mean we are getting fewer AAA games as budgets get bigger sure. But otherwise not sure what you're trying to say exactly.

Hardware is trending well, but software is all over the map.

Partly that's because of digital purchases (and how much each company does or does not report digital sales, whereas there was tracking for physical product,) partly that's because of continued trends in mobile, partly that's a shift in long-tail product meaning one product spans multiple platform generations through GAAS or content services (whereas in the past a new console was a great opportunity to launch new IP since there was a refresh of audience and also the stagnant purchasers would be reintroduced to the wider market,) etc. It's not the 'regular' rollercoaster ride, and it's been going this direction for a while, but this gen feels like acceptance of the inevitable.

(THQ/Embracer was the last attempt so far at shipping product the old fashioned way, and Microsoft talked about the Activision merge saying, "Just imagine what we could do with all these great franchises...", yet current industry moves by both of those paint a different picture of their futures for at least a little while now.)

 

[Roufianos]

Not that I actively rooted for this deal, but I feel stupid for having delusions that it could benefit teams like Toys for Bob.

 

[Raonak]

Phil senpai... Why are you doing this?

What was the point in buying acti blizz if you're gonna cut a large portion of studios like this?

I wonder how many projects get delayed because of these layoffs and how bad staff morale must be knowing there might be more rounds of layoffs.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Phil senpai... Why are you doing this?

What was the point in buying acti blizz if you're gonna cut a large portion of studios like this?

I wonder how many projects get delayed because of these layoffs and how bad staff morale must be knowing there might be more rounds of layoffs.

Pretty clear at this point they only bought Activision for the IP and see the talent as disposable

We’ll see how long it takes for them to turn
CoD into Halo and this acquisition looks like a total waste and value destroyer for the industry

 

[Ozriel]

This shit gets even more and more stupid.

All this man seems to care about is breaking into Mobile gaming, it seems.